British vs Colombian food & cuisine

Pies are everywhere. Pub menus still feature steak and kidney, rich beef and gravy in pastry. The Cornish pasty was once a miner’s packed lunch, filled with beef, potato, swede, and onion. Sweet pies like apple with custard or sticky treacle tart are classics. Pork pies are eaten cold with jellied stock. But Shepherd’s pie (lamb), cottage pie (beef),  and fish pie, though called ‘pies’, still swap pastry for mashed potato topping.

Rice arrived via Spanish colonization and independently through the African slave trade. Coconut rice on the Caribbean coast developed as a distinct Afro-Colombian tradition. Wheat was never dominant. Pan de bono and pan de yuca combine cassava starch with cheese rather than pure wheat flour. The arepa was already embedded across social classes before wheat could establish urban prestige. Colombian empanadas — the country’s most common stuffed pastry — use cornmeal dough, not wheat, making them an exception within Latin America.

The British love preparing their root veggies with a two-stage method: parboiling followed by high-heat roasting.  Honey glazing is another practice; it involves adding honey only in the final 8-10 minutes of cooking to achieve caramelization without burning. Later, it was often combined with thyme or sage.

Green peas, or mushy peas, are a British classic, both nostalgic and practical,  loved for their comfort-food appeal and mild sweetness.

Yuca, potato, arracacha, plantain, and ñame fill the role bread or pasta plays elsewhere. The same ingredients carry class associations — historically tied to rural, Indigenous, and Afro-Colombian households , now they appear in restaurants when fried, filled, or paired with cheese or seafood.

Kidney beans, lentils, chickpeas, and peas are central to Andean and Antioquian cooking. A pot of beans absorbs hogao (onions, garlic and tomato base), stretches meat, and feeds a household across multiple meals.

Fruit is consumed almost entirely as juice blended with water or milk. Lulo, maracuyá, tomate de árbol, and guanábana are too acidic or texturally difficult to eat whole, and also don’t travel well, and are less known outside of the country. Almuerzo without juice is considered incomplete.

The Sunday roast traditions are Britain’s weekly meat celebration. Most families choose between lamb with mint sauce, roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy, or pork with crackling and apple sauce.

For weekday comfort, bangers and mash is quintessentially British. Brits eat more sausages per capita than Germans, despite Germany’s reputation for sausage-making.

Another British institution, served as a weekend treat, is the full English breakfast, featuring bacon, eggs, sausages, black pudding, baked beans, grilled tomatoes, and mushrooms.

Most distinctively Colombian as ternera a la llanera (mamona),  young beef salted and roasted upright on stakes around an open fire, distinct from Argentine asado’s grill-based method. Pork is a celebratory food. Lechona — whole deboned pig stuffed with rice, peas, and pork fat, baked up to ten hours.  Chicharrón (fried pork belly with a retained meat layer) is the everyday food.

Preservation techniques are limited given the year-round warm climate and continuous fresh meat supply; dried beef exists in the Llanos, regional chorizos, and longanizas elsewhere.

Cod is the fish of choice in the famous fish and chips dish, and haddock is the second most popular white fish and the most popular fish for smoking, commonly dyed bright yellow.

In the Caribbean region, whole fried mojarra with coconut rice and patacones; cazuela de mariscos (shrimp, fish, squid, clams, crab in coconut milk) for celebrations. In the Pacific, encocado — fish, shrimp, crab, or piangua clams in coconut milk with hogao, annatto, and herbs.
Colombian ceviche also exsist, but is rather regiona. It contains tomatoe sauce and is commonly served with saltine crackers; closer in character to a shrimp cocktail than Peruvian ceviche, developed from Caribbean and Afro-Colombian influences rather than as a variation on the Peruvian dish.

Freshwater fish, like bocachico was historically important, now under pressure from overfishing; cachama now the primary commercially farmed freshwater species.

Back on the British preferences: red Leicester claims second place with 20% popularity, followed by mozzarella at 18%, then halloumi and brie tied at 15% each. This ranking shows how traditional British cheeses hold their ground against international favourites.

Scotch egg is a classic pub snack: a hard-boiled egg wrapped in seasoned sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs, and deep-fried. Despite the name, it has nothing to do with Scotland. It’s so quintessentially British that it’s become a symbol of traditional pub food.

British pubs have a unique tradition of serving pickled eggs as bar snacks, often sitting in large jars behind the bar for months. These vinegary eggs are salty, and they do increase beer sales – a brilliant bit of British business psychology disguised as food.

Queso campesino: Soft, moist, mildly acidic; used in arepas, soups, and baked goods.
Queso costeño: Firmer, saltier; grated over rice or paired with suero costeño — a pourable fermented milk condiment, believed to derive from Arab Colombian adaptations of labneh.

Chocolate santafereno: Hot chocolate served with a slice of fresh cheese dropped into the cup, melted, and eaten with a spoon. Daily breakfast tradition in Bogotá; no equivalent exists elsewhere.

Arequipe: Milk caramel, related to dulce de leche; eaten with obleas, fruit, and in bakery fillings

Fruit-based desserts are very popular, especially crumbles and pies like treacle tart, Bakewell tart, and banoffee pie. Eton mess – a delightful chaos of strawberries, meringue, and cream – is another favorite.

What Brits really love is the combination of rich, warming flavors with creamy accompaniments. Almost everything comes with custard, cream, or both. There’s also a nostalgic element – many of these desserts evoke childhood memories and family traditions.

Nuts aren’t used extensively in traditional British cuisine compared to many other cuisines.